waste heat

A pedal-powered helicopter, a very low-tech speaker for your iPhone made from bamboo, and an online map of solar power potential for NYC… your green tech finds for the week.

The pedal-powered helicopter: Think it’s impossible to achieve this kind of flight on human power alone? Engineering students at the University of Maryland managed to get off the ground for 4.2 seconds (a US national record) in their Gamera helicopter. See more about the project in the video above. (via Crisp Green)

Reused wine bottles: New company Wine Bottle Renew claims it can clean pre-consumer wine bottles (from tasting rooms and manufacturers) to the point where they’re better than new… and cheaper, also. (via Earth 911)

Off-grid in the Big Apple, and geothermal energy capture that doesn’t cause earthquakes… your green tech finds for the week.

The recycling robot: Finnish start-up ZenRobotics claims its ZenRobotics Recycler, a robot designed to sort recyclables from other waste, has correctly identified half the materials presented to it in tests. See the “trailer” for the robot above. (via Good News from Finland)

Waste heat recovery isn’t nearly as sexy as solar panels or wind turbines… but it’s a concept already proving its worth, with a lot of room for growth. It’s also an idea that might strike most of us as pretty non-controversial; however, when the waste heat is coming from a crematorium, battle lines appear.

Because green technology never takes a holiday… here are this week’s finds. Salting away solar power: Nevada Power has announced a 25-year deal to buy solar power from the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, which will be “the nation’s first commercial solar power plant using salt storage to distribute energy after the sun sets…” Satellites…